Kill them all
by Jyalika
Summary: ...where instead of Harry Potter they get Eren Jaeger. (Reincarnation. Drabble format. Future m/m ereri.)
1. Hello World

**1. Hello World**

Severus Snape thinks he knows exactly what Harry Potter will be like. He thinks the boy will be tall for his age, with that damnable Potter signature hair, arrogant gait and confident look in his - Lily's - eyes.

"These are not Lily's eyes," is his first thought upon laying his gaze on the boy for the first time.

It's not just the color that's wrong (turquoise, when it should have been emerald green), but also the expression. The boy's eyes, unexpectedly not hidden behind some hideous glasses, are old and tired, and full of blistering, boiling, _inhuman_ rage.

"This is not Harry Potter," is his second thought. Because Harry Potter was supposed to have a black untamable mop of hair on his head (just like his father's), where _this_ boy's hair is while also messy, brown. Harry Potter was supposed to have a clearly defined scar on his forehead, whereas _this_ boy's scar is old and thin and barely visible. Harry Potter was supposed to be arrogant, naive and full of shit, where _this_ boy is tightly restrained ball of barely contained fury and almost _alien_ intelligence.

Because you shouldn't feel, as if you're staring at the deadly predator, ready to spring and consume you whole, while looking at an eleven year old child. You just _shouldn't_.

Severus Snape feels cold sweet forming between his shoulder blades. He doesn't understand how all these other children could just stand next to him so calmly, how other staff members could watch the boy with easily detectable curiosity and surprise, but without any hint wariness.

But Severus always did have excellent instincts.

He just doesn't always listen to them. The only thing he knows right then is that something somewhere had gone terribly, horribly wrong, and automatically touches the child's mind with legimency, and-

(-Petunia's shrill screams-broken body of his uncle laying on a sidewalk-satisfying crunch of human bones between his teeth-jaws open wide-the hot rush of blood down his throat-the cupboard under the stairs-the Walls-destroy the enemy-deep aching hunger-anger-sadness-pleasure-pain-and **RAGE**)

_What. Is. This. Boy._

Severus retreats from the boy's (monster's) mind as quickly as possible, nearly stumbling out of his seat at the Head Table in shock and alarm.

"This _is_ Harry Potter," he concludes with a touch of hysteria. "Our Savior."

And then, bitterly.

"Merlin help us".


	2. Identity

**2. Identity**

For a long time a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs isn't quite sure what his name really is - whether it is Harry, or a boy, or a freak, or Eren.

His memories are a disjointed jumble of broken glass, and its sharp edges can never fully fit together.

He remembers clearly the sad and miserable years, spent with his aunt, uncle and cousin. Remembers screaming matches about his freakishness, constant hunger, constant fights to get out of this house, this town and this family, that grew more and more brutal, the older he got. Remembers (strangely familiar) fear in his aunt and uncle's eyes every time they looked at him, hushed whispers, that always followed him in the neighborhood, pinched look on aunt Petunia's face, when he asked about his parents.

They told him they were drunks that died in a car crash - but something in him violently rebels at that thought.

From time to time he dreams about beautiful woman with red hair, shielding him with her body from someone else, someone unpleasant and dangerous, with a high-pitched laugh and cruel eyes (_not Harry, please, take me instead_). Sometimes he thinks she was his mother. (But something is still not right, because he could swear his mother had brown hair and warm hazel eyes, but when he tries to remember what happened to her, his chest tightens with pain, and something dark and foreboding tries to rise from the depth of his mind, and in the end may be he doesn't want to know after all).

And then there are dreams, that don't feel like dreams.

About living in a strange medieval city, surrounded by high walls (_prison_ – his mind whispers to him, just like his cupboard, and he _hates_ them then with a single-minded intensity, because somewhere deep in his heart he _knows_ that humans were not meant to be restricted).

About a smart blond boy (_Armin, read me your grandfather's book about the sea again_) and quiet, but strong and fiercely protective of him dark-haired girl (_Mikasa, stop babying me, I'm not a child_). And on days like this waking up in the morning is a chore, because their warm laughter is still ringing in his ears along with aunt Petunia's call to "get-started-on-breakfast-already-you-lazy-boy". (On days like this he isn't sure he wants to wake up at all).

But not all of these dreams are pleasant. More often than not, he is plagued by nightmares – nightmares about blood and death, and gore, and people dropping like flies all around him, being torn apart, chewed upon, swallowed whole. Nightmares about _titans_.

On days like this he wakes up drenched in sweat, shaking from head to toe with an animalistic hatred so deep and vast, that he almost drowns in it, filled with obsessive urge to fight (because flight isn't an option), to kill (_kill them all_), to obliterate _every single one of them_ (with his blades, with his fists, with his _teeth_).

Problem is titans don't seem to exist anymore.


	3. Of monsters and men

**3. Of monsters and men**

He makes a mistake of asking his aunt about titans once. It goes as well, as expected – which means, he ends up getting locked in a cupboard for the duration of the next week, not a single step closer to having an actual answer.

Because no matter how many times he sneaks into the living room, while his uncle is watching the news, no one ever mentions giant man-eating monsters. History books in school's library say nothing about Walls (except for the Chinese Wall, but even that is not high enough).

It is strange and wrong, and-

This whole world is strange, wrong, and terrifyingly _unfamiliar_. There is technology, the workings of which he can't even begin to understand and will probably never be comfortable around. There are all kind of books – about seas, and oceans, and deserts, and mountains (he slips a National Geographic magazine from the library to his cupboard and leafs through it long into the night, marveling at all beautiful pictures of different places around the world, silently vowing to travel to all of them someday). There are planes that could fly you to the other side of the world in a matter of hours. There are skyscrapers, some of which are two, three times higher than Walls.

But the most disturbing revelation he gets is upon the discovery of wars. There are wars, he learns, and people fighting not just some external treat for the survival of their race, but with _each other_, and that nearly sends him into shock, because he just _doesn't understand_, can't wrap his head around it and, honestly, doesn't _want_ to. The concept of hundreds, thousands, millions of people dying because of _differences in opinion_ is repulsing to the point of nausea to him and utterly _foreign_.

(Everything is foreign here).

All of it makes him doubt himself, his memories and his sanity, eats him from inside out slowly, but surely, drives him insane. (Because most of the time he is not even sure, whether he is Harry Potter, dreaming of being Eren Jaeger, or Eren Jaeger, dreaming of being Harry Potter – and it is _terrifying_.)

He doesn't know what to do, what to think, whom to fight. And so – he waits.

Waits for a long time (_year after year after year_) for something, _anything_ to happen – for Armin to suddenly wake him up with a smile and a promise of a new story. For Mikasa to silently fall into step with him on the way to school. For a giant hand to peel off their rooftop and for a reeking greedy maw to sink its teeth into the screaming, crying, pleading bodies of his relatives. (Sometimes it scares him, how the last image makes him feel almost _hopeful_).

But nothing ever does.

He is tired and lost, and confused, and so, so _angry_.

When his uncle breaks his arm one day for turning up on the school's roof with some "freakish display of _freakishness_" (and how did _that_ happen?), he is almost relieved. Because this is violence, pure and simple, and Harry (or is it Eren?) knows exactly how to deal with violence – to hit back twice as hard.

(The back of his uncle's neck looks particularly inviting).

That night he dreams about knives, about the sound they make, slicing through meat and bones, about monsters, wearing human flesh, and Mikasa's empty broken eyes (_you can't win if you don't fight)_. He wakes up to the taste of blood in his mouth, accompanied by a curious set of marks on his hand, and to a grim (_satisfied_) realization, that even if titans don't exist anymore, monsters - monsters are _universal_.

(-and he will exterminate them _all_.)


	4. About loss

**4. About loss**

When he is ten, he learns about love.

He dreams of gentle fingers running through his hair, low sensual murmur, whispering something excitingly filthy in his ear (_bend over, you shitty brat, and prepare yourself for me, I want to watch_). He dreams of wet kisses upon his back, of hands on his hips – firm, steady and male; their touch burns him, but it is a good pain, and he can't get enough of it. He dreams of heavy-lidded dark grey eyes, thin lips and pale snowy skin, riddled with scars new and old.

(Something like lava runs through his veins instead of blood, something like desperation, or lust, or heartbreak. Something like love.)

He wakes up to his cupboard under the stairs, and his name is still Harry (when he was eight he finally decided to just call himself Harry – it helps to avoid confusion), he is still only ten (awkward limbs, squeaky voice, thin as a stick), and the world around him is still too vast to properly comprehend.

He closes his eyes, still feeling the phantom touches of his (_not his not his not anymore_) lover, curls into a ball and _cries_, sobs like a child (_and he is now, isn't he?_) into his dirty pillow for a different life he may or may not have lived once upon a time, and for a man with gentle hands and steely eyes.

(That day he learns about loss).


	5. The freak show

**5. The freak show**

It's kind of funny and sad at the same time that the first time he gets the chance to see an ocean is during a mad summer chase through the countryside in a futile effort to outrun the owls bringing frankly ridiculous amount of letters.

He is not even sure, if it is really an ocean, or a sea – their difference in size just an empty number for him without any actual meaning. But whatever it really is, it fits the description Armin once recounted to him in a breathless voice full of wonder perfectly.

It is enormous. It is beautiful. It is wild.

He never imagined, that something like this – this shrieking, howling wind, the crash of waves upon the rocky shore, the rumbling thunder, this epitome of nature's violence unrestrained - could ever exist. (Something is rising from the darkest depth of his soul, struggling to get out and howl its fury for all the world to hear; something equally wild and hungry and _vicious_).

He is completely and utterly _enamored_.

It takes his aunt, muttering about ungrateful brats under her breath and dragging him to a shabby little shack by force, to wake him up from an astonished daze.

It takes a giant, hairy, creepily smiling man to banish all thoughts about sea from his mind altogether. Instead he almost goes for his knives, (creepy smile-jaws opened wide-teeth, covered in human blood-kill it-kill it-_kill it_), realizing at last moment, that no, it's not a titan, just a very big human.

(He is not disappointed. He is _not_.)

("You have your mother's eyes" says the man – Hagrid - and then stops short after getting a closer look.)

That day he discovers the differences between humans, monsters and freaks. Surprisingly, he prefers the word "freaks" to "wizards and witches". Mostly because this whole magic business with their dark lords and secrecy and "Albus-Dumbledore-such-a-great-man" and, well, _magic_ reminds him disturbingly of children's fairytales. It tastes suspiciously sour in his mouth. (He stopped believing in fairytales and happy endings a long, long time ago, when the Wall Maria was breached and his mother – and _no_, no, no, stop, don't think about it, _don't think about it_).

He doesn't like that his perception of the world is changing _again_. He doesn't like that there is literally no time to adjust, and his aunt is screaming at him something about her sister, "always-perfect-Lily", about his uncle, who "would have whipped this magic out of you boy, he would have", and "this is your fault that he is dead, everyone's dying around you".

She doesn't know, how _right_ she is (_everyone's dying around you_), and he doesn't really know how to deal with it, never knew how to deal with guilt, survival or otherwise. (These days every time he closes his eyes, someone's dying some kind of horrible, gruesome death – because he wasn't fast enough, or strong enough, or smart enough. He stopped vomiting upon waking up years ago).

But then again, may be he does deserve it. He thinks of his uncle then (_this is your fault that he is dead_), and smiles, because in this particular case he has absolutely nothing to feel guilty for. (Because that particular monster will never bother anyone ever again).


	6. What a beautiful day

**6. What a beautiful day**

No matter, how many times he have already seen this, it still surprises him – the sheer amount of blood that human body contains.

His uncle, thought, all bend up out of shape and awkward, laying motionless on a sidewalk of a busy London street, gray matter slowly seeping out of his cracked up scull, doesn't look like a human. He looks like a butchered pig.

The dented car is sprayed with red and the driver, young man in his twenties, can't seem to tear his eyes from the body, oddly fascinated. Petunia is screeching with horror, white as sheet, looking ready to faint. At least, Dudley is not here – not matter what kind of brat he is, kid doesn't deserve the front-line seat of the "how-my-pig-of-a-father-died" movie.

(He thought that he will feel pleased about his uncle's death, maybe even vindictively satisfied, but at the end of the day all he really feels is – old and tired. The job is done, he feels.)

Is it strange to feel so young and old at the same time, he wonders later that day, mechanically washing dishes and listening to the news report on a TV with half an ear (even after all these years he still waits for the reports about giant humanoid monsters to pop up).

Then again, most of the time he's not really sure, just how old he actually is. The dreams are not helping. Sometimes he dreams of being young (naïve, hopeful, such a goddamn little idiot), sometimes he dreams of being a teenager (yes, Corporal Rivaille, right away, Corporal Rivaille, touch me, please, Corporal Rivaille). Sometimes he dreams of being ageless, hungry, giant monster full of rage (_humans are tiny under his feet, tiny and insignificant_).

Everything is different, when he dreams of being a titan. The colors are sharper and somehow deeper, more meaningful – especially the yellows (he can suddenly distinguish a hundred different hues to the sunlight) the reds (it speaks of blood and chase and survival of the fittest). His thoughts are slow and heavy, like in a dream within a dream, and doesn't really matter, because all that is really required for action is already instinctive (_-to hunt his prey-to tear it's flesh with hands and teeth-to consume it's life-to-exterminate-_).

He knows he cannot turn into a titan anymore (and may be it's for the best, because Corporal Rivaille is not here anymore to dispose of him if he ever goes on a rampage). He knows it (he _tried_). But sometimes, when the deep, all-consuming rage (that never left him, _not really_; it's always shimmering just beneath the surface) clouds his mind, it feels like nothing's changed.

It feels like colors and scents and movements in the corner of his eye speak to him about life and death. It fells like with a single thought he can bent reality, twist it and wrap around his finger. It feels like someone is screaming inside his head (_inside the light-bolt scar on his forehead_), being slowly eaten alive, bit by agonizing bit.

In these moments windows are trembling, light bulbs are exploding in a shower of glass all around the house and the furniture is flying. In these moments humans are tiny, insignificant and so easily _breakable_ (and the line between dream and reality, between human and titan, between _Harry and Eren_ is almost nonexistent).

It is so very easy then to _will_ his uncle on the path of an upcoming vehicle.

(Between monsters and freaks he knows _perfectly_, which category he really belongs to. Because freaks may be unnatural, but monsters... Monsters are _inhuman_. And he long ago stopped caring about his humanity, because, as Armin once said, nothing worthwhile could be gained without sacrifice.)


	7. Humanity's Last Hope

**7. Humanity's Last Hope**

Countless eyes, following his every move from Leaky Cauldron to Diagon Alley, don't bother him. Neither do the whispers, full of undisguised awe and full-blown hero worship. ("Look at that kid, isn't he Harry Potter?", "Did you see the scar?", "Mommy, why doesn't he wear glasses, like in my storybook?") Honestly, he is _used_ to it (remembers with perfect clarity, that he could never go out of Survey Corps Headquarters without some kind of crowd – angry more often than not – forming around him almost instantly).

What _does_ bother him is the name-calling.

Savior of the Wizarding World, they call him. The Boy-Who-Lived.

He is not sure whether to laugh or to cry (or to go for the knives – because _that_ is his first, primal response for any kind of stress, and if being thrown headfirst into a whirlpool of _crazy_ isn't stressful, he doesn't know what is).

Maybe in another time, in another _world_, where he was just some ordinary eleven year old without memories of ancient war invading his dreams, he would have been overjoyed to receive such warm welcome to the world of magic. He would have been enthusiastic, probably even grateful for a chance at a new, happier life, full of sunshine and miracles (and isn't it curious that such a startling contrast could exist between the life with his relatives and the magical world, where everyone wants to see his scar and shake his hand).

He knows _intimately_, thought, how fickle public opinion really is. How fast it could turn from adoration to scorn to outright hatred and then back to adoration again. How easy it is to loose your sense of self amongst of all the expectations thousand different people put upon you, some of them – mutually exclusive. How easy it is to break your back, trying to satisfy all of them, only to realize in the end that it's impossible, and be discarded, when your usefulness finally runs out.

(He is not bitter. He _is not_.)

Once upon a time he willingly bore the heavy burden of being humanity's last hope (and look where it led him). He doesn't want to anymore. (There is no Armin, or Mikasa, or Corporal Rivaille to make it worth it).

Absentmindedly patting some stranger's shoulder, smiling benevolently to some stranger's face, he knows with a deep-seeded, unshakable certainty, born from experience, that all it would take is one misstep for all these people to turn their backs on him.

(Sometimes he wonders, why he doesn't remember his – Eren's - death. Years later, when the memory finally comes to him, he wishes to forget it all over again.)


	8. Face to face

**8. Face to face**

Hagrid's first impression of Harry Potter is that he came at a wrong address (no matter how hard he tries, he could see neither James, nor Lily in the boy's features). His second – is that Harry grew up to be a quiet, introspective, thoughtful child in contrast to his boisterous father and fiery tempered mother. Nevertheless, half-giant quickly finds himself genuinely liking the kid, and not just because he was friends with his parents. (It's not that strange, when Hagrid's borderline fanatical fascination with all kinds of dangerous monsters is taken into consideration, but for a long time no one can draw the right parallels.)

Harry's first impression of his new owl is that she is _hiding something_. The fault probably lies in her eyes – cunning, predatory and intelligent (like his own). For awhile he toys with the idea to name her after some kind of local (to _this_ world) goddess of hunt or something, but in the end decides against it. He calls her Annie instead (and silently laughs every time she turns away from him in disdain, ruffling her feathers). Later someone asks him why he gave his magnificent white owl such a plan name and he just smiles and answers, that she is named in honor of an old friend. (_I will take care of you this time, Annie_, he thinks, gently cleaning the blood of some unfortunate animal from her beak after she flies into his room that night. It probably isn't healthy or altogether sane, but he just doesn't care anymore.)

Draco Malfoy's first impression of Harry Potter is that the boy is _strange_. He is not quite sure, if it's a _good_ strange or a _bad_ strange yet. Probably bad, he decides, after thinking about his encounter with an aforementioned celebrity in Madam Malkin's shop some more. Potter didn't even recognize his family name, like some kind of mudblood, fancy that! Unthinkable. _Everyone_ knows Malfoys. And then, after Draco took pity on him and graciously explained in a few subtle hints his family's superiority and the wonders of Slytherin House versus all of the others, the boy had the gall to laugh at him and muss his hair. Like he was a little kid that needed to be placated. No one musses Malfoy's heir and gets away with it!

Goblins first impression of the famous Boy-Who-Lived is that he is to be avoided. At all cost. They are a race of warriors, but every goblin knows not to mistake a healthy caution in the face of an overwhelming treat with cowardice, and _oh_, the Boy-Who-Lived is a treat to everyone who crosses his pass no matter the intentions of a trespasser, there's no mistake about it. His gait and manners are far too confident for a mere child, who only reached his eleventh spring, eyes are far too knowing, but it is his _smell_, that has every goblin in the vicinity stand at attention. The smell of a critically wounded predator, which has nothing left to lose. The smell of a beast half-mad with pain, which trots precariously upon a dangerously thin thread above the dark waters of insanity, where one wrong move could send him falling. They don't know why he wears a face of a human child and they don't care. Mostly, goblins are just glad, that they won't be there when that deceptive face would finally crack.

Ollivander's first impression of Harry Potter's wand is that it is _unexpected_. Fourteen inches, grayed maple and banshee's hair, it waited for it's wielder for more, than two hundred years, and until this day Garrick Ollivander had his doubts, that this wand would find its match during the course of his lifetime. Made on a whim in the early days of his own apprenticeship, it has a character, hardly compatible with your everyday eleven year old wizard – too stiff, too unusual, too dark. Because grayed maple stands for traveling, for spirit, for rebirth (and not in a good way, like holy or even yew – after all, to be reborn, something needs to die first), as for banshee's hair… Well. Banshees cry for the damned, enough said. When he tells all this to his new customer, solemn and serious, the boy doesn't look surprised. Caressing his wand carefully, cautiously, the boy looks - above all - resigned. (And isn't that _curious_?)


End file.
